


Natural order of things

by magicbeanstalk



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Genius Kara Danvers, Kara Raises Kal, Scientist Kara Danvers, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:27:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28440867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicbeanstalk/pseuds/magicbeanstalk
Summary: AU where Kara raises Kal, and works as a scientist at L-Corp.
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 71
Kudos: 318





	1. Lena

Lena sighed and rubbed her hand down her face, carelessly dropping the whiteboard marker she was holding to the ground. 

She had been working on this stupid project for over a week now, and she just could not, for the life of her, figure out the final calculations. She was beginning to think that maybe she should ask for help. But no, that wasn’t the Luthor way. And what would her employees think? That their world renowned scientist CEO couldn’t do some calculations that she had already spent an embarrassingly long time working on? No, she couldn’t have that.

She hadn’t slept in… a few days, maybe? She probably just needed to recharge. Yes, that was it. Lena would have a quick nap on the sofa she had put in the corner of the room specifically for this reason, and when she woke up she would continue. 

With a decisive nod, she stripped off her lab coat and trainers, set an alarm for 90 minutes - the length of one sleep cycle - and lay down on the sofa.

\-----------

Lena woke up slowly. Blinking blearily, she brought her phone close to her face to check the time, and saw she had only been asleep for just under half an hour. What had woken her up? Eyes still half closed, she sluggishly swung her legs over the side of the sofa, and as she became more aware of her surroundings, a strange rubbing sound and quiet mutterings filtered through her tired haze. Suddenly, a voice with a foreign sounding accent exclaimed;

“Ah! You are awake!”

Huh? She rubbed her eyes, and a tall figure standing in front of her whiteboard became clear.

“I was just working on your number board. You were very close, but at the beginning there was a mistake so I…”

The strange blonde person trailed off as Lena jumped off the couch with an angry exclamation and rushed to the whiteboard. The whiteboard with over a week’s worth of careful calculations, which this weird newcomer had just…. solved?

Lena paused. How had this person, within Lena assumed less than half an hour, just fixed the problem that she - a proven genius - was stuck on? Also, how had the blonde managed to get into her lab? She was just about to spiral into ‘Lex has hired another assassin to kill me, run’ and ‘I'm being spied on, act normal’ thoughts when she was interrupted by that strangely accented voice again, sounding apologetic this time. 

“I am sorry. Should I not have done that?”

Lena gathered her thoughts, then turned to the person with a polite smile. _What was that accent, and how did she fix her working so easily?_

“I would rather you hadn’t erased my work, but since you appear to have also somehow solved it, I guess I will look over it this time. Now, who are you, and why are you in my lab?”

The woman - who was honestly rather attractive, Lena was now realising - reached up to touch her glasses. 

“I am Kara Zor-El. I am here for the job interview? The person, Jess, said you would be here and I should just come in? You are Lena Luthor, yes?”

Oh. Right. The interview. Lena had completely forgotten about it, too caught up in her thoughts to remember. 

“Ah, yes, Miss Zor-El. My apologies. Please, come sit with me on the couch.”

Once they were both comfortably seated, and the person - Kara Zor-El, a potential employee, Lena reminded herself - had carefully put her bag down next to her feet, Lena forged ahead with the interview. 

“So, lets begin. What brought you to L-Corp, and why would you like to work here?”

“I heard about this job through a friend. I would like to work here because I have seen the good things you do here, and I think that I can help with it.”

“What kind of things specifically do you believe you can help with, and how? For example, if given the chance how would you improve L-Corp’s solar technology?”

“Well, for the solar technology, I would…”

After a couple more of these questions, Lena decided she had learnt enough about Kara’s admittedly impressive skill set and ideas and moved on to some questions about the potential employee. And if they included slightly more personal questions than normal, who could blame her? Her last relationship had ended over a year ago, and right here in front of her was an attractive lady just a bit younger than her with - Lena checked - no ring on.

“So tell me about your personal life. Where did you grow up? Where is that accent from?”

“I am from Kaznia. I am sorry about my accent, I only learnt english when I moved to the United States at age 16. I promise though, that I understand everything, and I can read and write in English perfectly too.”

Lena felt a pang of sympathy for the woman. It must have been hard moving to such a different country at such a young age, especially one with a completely different language that she had presumably been forced to learn. And the slightly desperate way she had said that she knew English… Lena wondered how many times she had been rejected or looked over for jobs just because of her accent. 

Urgh. She was going to hire this young, attractive genius wasn’t she. 

Lena stood up and held out her hand to shake. 

“Okay, thank you. That will be all. My assistant will send along all the necessary paperwork, and I expect you in the labs at 8:00 o’clock sharp next Monday for your first day of work.”

Lena offered a warm smile in return to the unfiltered look of pure delight that passed across Kara’s features as she shook Lena’s hand, and ushered her to the door, hoping that wouldn’t be the last time she saw her.


	2. Kara

Kara walked down the street.

She was on her way to a job interview at L-Corp, something the alien doctor had told her about last time she brought Kal for a checkup. 

It had been hard finding work, for although she was an incredible genius by this primitive planet’s standards and had learnt english (among many of earth’s other languages) in a matter of weeks after landing, her accent and general lack of understanding about earth customs made potential employers reluctant to hire her. 

She had also learnt pretty fast that if she mentioned Kal at a job interview, the person she was talking to basically just closed down and she wouldn’t get the job. She also got that strange look - pity, maybe? Kara didn't understand the silly humans and their strange facial movements, or why exactly they felt the need to look at her like that after hearing about Kal.

Kara stopped thinking about the past as she reached L-Corp’s large double doors. 

She entered, briefly glancing around the large entry room as she made her way to the receptionist’s desk.

“Hello. My name is Kara Zor-El. I am here for a job interview with Lena Luthor?”

Kara resisted the urge to wince as she listened to her mouth butcher even these simple english words. 

“Ah, yes! Miss Please just wait a minute while a call ahead to Miss. Luthor’s secretary.” To his credit, the receptionist stifled the curious glance upwards when he heard Kara’s accent, though Kara could still smell the curiosity coming off of him.

A few keyboard taps later, the receptionist smiled at her and said “you’ll need to go up to the 62nd floor. There’s an elevator just to your left, and stairs next to it. When you get there, Miss Luthor’s personal secretary Jess will come get you. Good luck on the interview, and have a good day.”

Kara smiled back, though he was already looking back down at his computer - the humans always seemed to smile back. “Thank you. You too.”

She made her way to the corner with the elevator and the stairs, and began climbing up the steps. Elevators reminded her of her pod, and today was not a good day to face that. She needed to make a good impression.

She carefully used a calculated mixture of her flight and super speed to go up all the stairs without alerting the cameras in each corner of the stairwell to her inhuman speed.

Soon, she was at the top of the stairs being met by a woman called Jess. 

“Hello. You must be Kara… Zor-El?”

The small woman glanced up at her from her desk.

“Yes. I’m here for a job interview with Miss Luthor.”

“Hm.” Jess shuffled a couple more papers around before standing up. “Miss Luthor is in her lab right now, so I will just bring you there. Please follow me.”

\-------

Kara wasn’t quite sure what to do.

Jess had left her at the lab door, and no one was replying to her knocks.

Was that normal? Maybe the humans had evolved some kind of mind reading trait while she wasn’t paying attention, and she was revealing herself to be an alien right this second. 

However a quick google search on her stupid outdated phone told her that humans could not in fact read minds, and she decided to just go in.

As soon as she entered, she saw a sleeping human on a couch in the corner, and faltered.

The interview instantly started badly. Lena Luthor seemed angry that she had solved her number board problem, though she didn’t really understand why. Humans always seemed weirdly protective of their work though, so maybe it was that.

Luckily though the conversation seemed to get a lot better after that, and Kara exited the room with a big smile on her face and finally a chance of working on actual science.

\-------

Kara fell down into the couch cushions with a thud. She had just gotten home after her job interview at L-Corp and grocery shopping for her and Kal, and while she had barely been able to stop smiling at the thought of being able to work on actual science again, she was also _exhausted_. 

She checked the time - she still had an hour before she had to go pick up Kal from school. If she finished all the random household stuff she still had to do, she could take a quick nap.

Barely 10 minutes later, Kara was fast asleep with her face smushed between 2 pillows and an alarm set to go off in 40 minutes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! chapter 3 should be out soon. constructive criticism is appreciated :)


	3. Lena

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much to all the people who left nice comments! they really do motivate me to continue this story, and i'd just like to say that even if i don't reply, i do read all of your comments.
> 
> thanks for reading! here is chapter 3 :)

Lena and Kara had become fast friends.

Even though the blonde was admittedly rather strange, her incredible genius and general friendliness never ceased to surprise her, and she was fast becoming someone Lena looked forward to seeing. 

They took coffee breaks together, sat next to each other in meetings, and had even worked on some projects together where Lena felt like a child just learning basic science next to the brilliance of her best friend’s brain.

She would be lying if she said she didn’t like it.

But as Lena tapped her pen against her lip, ignoring the work in front of her, she thought about her... problem.

Recently she’d been feeling... lets just say rather _unwelcome_ feelings towards the blonde.

Not that there was anything wrong with that of course, Lena was out and proud and anyone who thought a woman liking another woman was wrong could go screw themselves. 

No, it was that Kara was… well, Kara. She was innocent, and smart, and in her own odd way so very sweet. Lena couldn’t - no, she _wouldn’t_ ruin their friendship with her silly feelings, which Kara probably didn't even reciprocate.

Not to mention she was her employee, though that was pretty easily solved by just changing the person Kara reports to to someone that isn’t her.

But anyway.

For now at least, Lena had to stay in control of the situation without letting Kara know (though the blonde did seem rather oblivious, so that wasn’t really as big of an issue), and that meant carrying on as normal.

And with that resolution in mind, Lena put away her papers and headed down to Kara’s office with her coffee order to see if she wanted to take her break yet.

As she reached the frosted glass door that led to Kara’s office, she paused just before and took one deep breath, before swinging it open and facing the receiver of her affection.

“Hi, Kara. I got some coffee for you, how are your calculations for the new renewable wind energy going?”

Kara shot her a distracted smile and mumbled a quick “thank you” before turning back to the whiteboard. 

Lena set the coffee down on the desk and moved to stand next to the blonde.

“So? How are the calculations going?”

“The calculations?” Kara’s brow furrowed, her gaze still trained on the problem she was trying to solve.

“Yes, the wind calculations,” Lena chuckled fondly. Kara got like this sometimes, when she was especially deep in science. She didn’t, Lena herself was the same way. In fact, she found it rather cute how Kara - _hey, no, stop right there Luthor. No thoughts like that._

“Oh, they are done. I finished them ages ago…” Kara trailed off as she seemed to reach the end of the problem and wrote a few numbers on the board in a squeaky whiteboard marker blue and turning to Lena with a big smile on her face.

“Sorry, I just needed to finish that. It is one of those unsolvable problem things, you know? The ones on that website. It did not take me long though, so I think the website has been created by a liar,”

Lena smiled along, then glanced towards the whiteboard and quickly did a double take.

“Wha- Kara, what? You just... you just solved one of the Millennium Prize Problems, and you call it easy? I-” 

She stopped when she saw the slightly uncertain look on Kara’s face, and took another deep breath.

“Okay, you know what? That’s incredible Kara, and you should probably send that in to… somewhere, wherever you send these things. Would you like some coffee?”

Lena knew she’d said the right thing when the younger woman’s face broke into her wide, though slightly odd looking smile and she picked up the coffee from where Lena had put it.

“So, do you want to tell me how you solved it?”


	4. Kara

Kara spun thoughtfully on her desk chair.

She would have liked to be doing work instead of just sitting, but she’d finished the calculations for her project ages ago and now just needed to wait for the trial phases to finish. She’d set her interns on monitoring the experiment because they needed something to do and it would be pretty hard for them to mess it up. 

Lena had just left after almost 20 minutes of conversation, saying that she just remembered some very important work she’d forgotten about that needed to be done by the end of the day. Kara could tell that she was lying, she’d figured out how to read the human’s heartbeats pretty quickly after landing here, but she didn’t push and instead had just walked Lena to the door with a smile and a promise to go visit Lena in her office for tomorrow's afternoon break.

This combination of her lack of work and Lena’s lie had led her to the decision that she would analyse Lena’s behaviour. After all, might as well be productive right? 

So, her first step would be to make a list of odd behaviour Lena had exhibited. Grabbing her notepad and a pencil, she used her super speed to scribble down a list in kryptonian. Among other things, she decided the main ones were:

\- Increased heart rate after I touched her shoulder (nervous?)  
\- Blushed when I smiled at her  
\- Keep catching her looking at me, but when i look back she looks away  
\- Lied so she could leave daily shared break early

Okay. Next step was to research what these things could mean. Quickly grabbing her computer, she opened it and very carefully typed in some key words. She always had to be careful with these silly things, they were constantly breaking and she didn’t think Winn from IT would appreciate having to fix yet another keyboard.

The first thing to come up was a wikihow article titled “how to tell if your best friend has a crush on you” with a subheading of “step 1: increased heart rate, or blushing, when you talk to them.” 

Though she quickly read it just in case one of the humans asked her for help and she required assistive knowledge, she instantly dismissed it in terms of Lena.

If Lena had a crush on her surely she would say something. Despite the fact that she used sarcasm or flirting as a defence mechanism, she was often quite straightforward with Kara. She suspected it was because Lena had done her own analysis on Kara and had come to the conclusion that she would not understand her regular speech style. Which, embarrassing though it was, was not too far off the mark.

She suppressed the urge to sigh. This entire situation would have been so much easier back home on Krypton, where if someone thought they would work well together with her they would have simply given Kara a proposal document outlining their compatibility, notes from the matrix supporting any potential union, and what steps would be taken should she choose to agree.

The earthlings on the other hand all had such odd ideas about what they liked to call romance, and seemingly very specific rituals that they all just seemed to know instinctively but made absolutely no sense to Kara.

But anyway.

Though she was pretty sure Lena did not have a so-called ‘crush’ on her, she figured it was probably best to monitor future interactions for the foreseeable future, and come back to this when enough data had been compiled. Yes, that seemed okay. Or maybe she should just ask Lena? No, better to figure some more stuff out first and then question her.

Hey, was it okay to analyse friends like this? Frowning, she quickly opened a tab on her computer for yet another google search on the customs of this insufferable planet.


	5. Lena

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so... i kinda struggled writing this chapter and honestly i did not proofread so lets just hope it makes sense. enjoy! :)

Lena stood leaning against the railing.

It had been almost a week since she’d made an excuse to leave Kara’s office lab early, and she was ashamed to say that she’d been avoiding the blonde with excuses of “too much work!” and “I have to prepare for a board meeting” and once even “I’m really sorry but I have to take my fish to the vet today. Yes, he’s okay. Just a regular checkup,” ever since. 

Lena did not, and had never, owned a fish.

She’d made the decision to avoid her after realising that being around Kara just made her like the blonde more, and that therefore to quell these pesky feelings she would have to distance herself. 

So far it hadn’t worked, and honestly it just made Lena miserable to spend days without seeing her favourite person’s bright smile, but she was determined to keep going. For the good of their friendship. 

That was if Kara even still wanted to be friends with her after her continued shutdown of every invitation to get coffee or lunch together.

But anyway.

Since she now had free break times, she’d taken to just wandering around her company in places she was sure Kara would not visit and seeing what went on in the times that she was usually just holed up in her office or with Kara.

Right now, for example, she was watching as one of her employees led a group of school children and their teachers around one of L-Corps' more interesting labs (that conveniently happened to be practically in the opposite side of the building to where Kara worked), showing them through the glass windows some of the experiments her scientists were working on.

These specific kids here right now were part of their school’s advanced science program. She vaguely remembered that their teachers had contacted L-Corp about a month ago to see if they could get a tour to inspire some of their students for their own projects, and as a science kid herself of course Lena had said yes.

She was also happy that the community seemed to have started trusting Lena and her company more after her brother went crazy and tried to kill a bunch of people at that fundraiser for alien immigrants.

She was so deep in thought that she didn’t notice that the exact person she was trying to avoid by coming here was walking up next to her until she actually leant against the railing and gently nudged her shoulder with her own. 

“It is so nice to see kids being interested in science, yes? Like… they are the next generation. It is nice to think that the planet’s future is in good hands,”

After her initial surprise at being snuck up on and a quick second of panic where she desperately thought of a way to escape this conversation before then proceeding to realise it was basically impossible at this point, Lena forced a smile and nudged Kara’s (weirdly hard?) shoulder back. 

As always, Kara had seemed to sum up exactly what Lena was thinking, and Lena was pretty sure her feelings for the blonde had just grown a bit stronger. However, no time to panic. Talking to do.

“Yeah,” she agreed. “I wonder what kind of things they’ll come with,”

There was a pause, and then Kara spoke again. Even through the very distracting thoughts swirling around her head, Lena could hear the blonde’s hesitancy.

“Well, I cannot speak for the others, but I know my kid is pretty interested in sea life right now. Yesterday he showed me a surprisingly well thought out plan for a medical submarine that could release turtles from any plastic they got caught up in. Obviously there are some flaws still, but we are going to try to build it this weekend and test it with rubber ducks,” she laughed fondly.

Lena automatically chuckled along too as her brain continued thinking of ways to escape without hurting Kara’s feelings when she processed Kara’s words. Wait, a kid? Kara had a kid? 

The smile faded off her lips as she mentally flicked back through her conversations with Kara. She didn’t think she’d mentioned anything about a child in their occasional lunches… or had she said something and Lena had just been too distracted by the way light seemed to shine in Kara’s eyes or something?

“Hey, Kara. You said… your kid?”

She hesitated, but continued. “Yes. My son, Kal. He is actually down there right now - he’s the little one with black hair.” 

“Oh,”

Well, okay then. That was that then. Now she really needed to get rid of these feelings, she just knew that Kara, fiercely over protective Kara, would never risk her son for a silly relationship with her employer. And risked he would be, people still tried to kill her occasionally and anyone important to her could, and would, become a target too.

Wait, no. That wasn’t the most important thing, stop being selfish Lena. Her floundering brain suddenly came to a realization. If Kara’s son was down there with the _non infant school_ kids....

“How… how old is Kal?”

“He’s 11 years old,”

And with that, Lena’s blood ran cold, all her thoughts about avoiding Kara instantly thrown into the farthest corner of her mind and set on fire as this new and concerning information came to light.

If this was Kara’s biological son - and Lena suspected he was, for which until recently presumably financially unstable 24 year old would adopt an 11 year old? - then that meant that Kara would have had him at or around age 13.

Could she ask if he was adopted? No, right? She was adopted and she didn’t appreciate random people asking about it. Maybe she was looking after him briefly and her saying he was her son was just Kara mixing up english words? 

And oh god, if this was a permanent situation should she give Kara a pay raise? If she was working to support 2 people, not just herself, did she even have enough money? And she’d seen the way Kara could eat - the woman was constantly hungry. What if her son was like that too? And then schooling, and clothes, and-

Hey, why was Kara even telling her this? She must have realised that Lena was avoiding her, she hadn’t exactly been that subtle about it. Was this some kind of cruel prank in retaliation? To show Lena that she hardly mattered in Kara’s life, being not even important to know that 24 year old her best friend apparently had a _freaking 11 year old son_?

She suddenly realised that she’d been silent for too long, and rushed to speak again.

“That’s cool. 11 is a… a good age, right? That’s like… year 6? Grade 5? That invention seems pretty complicated for an 11 year old, he must be smart,”

Kara looked at her oddly, almost as if she was sizing her up or something, and Lena tried to stand up a little bit straighter. As if that would make Kara think that she was a responsible human being or something, and actually knew a single thing about kids.

“That’s right, year 6. Yeah, he is pretty smart. That’s actually the advanced science club for seniors down there, but he was invited to join. He’s good at writing too - an all rounder, as his teachers say,” she chuckled fondly.

“That’s… that’s cool. Very nice. You must be proud of him,”

Lena knew she’d somehow managed to say the right thing when Kara suddenly laughed and relaxed against the railing.

“I am, yeah. He is a good child,”

Lena smiled along, pleased that she seemed to have made Kara smile. They stood in comfortable silence for a while, and suddenly she felt a pang of self-hatred as she thought of how little effort she’d been putting into their friendship recently, but here was Kara talking to her and letting her into her life anyway.

Fuelled by this regret, without thinking she broke the quiet and her stupid, stupid mouth blurted out - 

“Would you like to have dinner with me tonight? I just… I feel like we haven’t talked much recently and I… I miss you? It’s okay if you say no or you’re busy or something, i just… yeah,”

Oh no. Oh no, wrong move. You’re meant to be _losing_ these feelings, not fuelling them on by practically asking the poor woman out on a date! She has a kid, she’s probably straight, and she is most likely would be completely uninterested in dating you even without those things! And what was that sentence? Come on Lena, you talk at board meetings and to massive groups of rich people all the time, but you can’t speak to your literal friend without stuttering? 

She was broken out of her spiralling thoughts by Kara’s accented voice accepting the invitation, and when she glanced over she saw the blonde looking at her with a bemused expression.

She ducked her head down in the rather useless hope of hiding the very obvious flush spreading across her face.

“So… i’ll text you the details?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> even if i don't reply, i do read all your guys' comments, and i do really appreciate them. thanks for reading! next chapter should be out soon :)

**Author's Note:**

> constructive criticism is appreciated :)


End file.
